Jack's Christmas Carol
by maskofjack
Summary: Jack is lead to salvation after three spirits haunt him.
1. Choir Meeting

So I've done some bad stuff. Lead to the deaths of like two or three kids, almost killed another myself. My ghosts. My past. They haunt me in my dreams. Not a night goes by when I don't wake up after a dream about a hunt, a dance, a fire, anything island related. Sometimes I see their "ghosts" although I don't believe in such supernatural fallacy. You go to heaven or hell, simple. But other times I wonder, can you wander earth and then go?

I'm kinda bitter now. Meaner than before, almost feral thanks to the Island's lack of order (my own fault.) When my mother tries to hug me, I run. I pull away and retreat, even though I know it kills her. My choir, they expect my wrath. Beatings, harsh words, and bitterness are sure to ensue when Choir Master turns around. And Ralph, he hates me; he cowers when he sees me. I glare at him, hate him, the living reminder of what I've done.

It's awkward, I see his ghost too. He's not even dead. Maybe it's the ghost of who he was, because he's different now. He used to be strong and extroverted. He was a leader. Now he's not even a follower. He looks down never speaking, sitting in fetal position and distancing himself from society. Out of a fear that society will turn on him again? I don't care. And it's all my fault. I don't care.

"Jack, you lead the Choir in warm up, please." Choir Master says.

So I lead them. They sound so _perfect_! Like little _angels_! Their voices, they think they're so _pure_! Can't they remember they're no more, no better, than _demons_ who have served the Lord of the Flies?

Bill makes a mistake. Fear colors his features as he looks to see if I heard. I did. While Choir Master is turned around, shuffling through papers, I punch Bill hard in the stomach, sending him reeling and coughing. Weaklings! They have no worth.

After practice, where I have successfully nailed Wilfred and Maurice for messing up words and screamed at the Choir a half dozen times, Roger approaches me.

"Jack, you're going too far." He says. Did he just _challenge_ me? I won't hit him, though, he's my best friend.

"I beg your parden?" I sneer, disgusted.

"You can't give in to your anger." Roger says, "I know all too well what happens when you let that happen! I still wish I was dead, when I think about Piggy, when I feel that guilt!

"Then die and stop complaining about it." I snap.

He's taken aback and his face contorts with pain. I hurt him, yet I retain that apathy with which I have become accustom.

"Jack," his voice shakes and his dark eyes tear into my blue. " 'Pride cometh before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.' Sorry, Jack, but you're not good enough to do what you do, and something's going to change you." He walks away.

What could really happen?


	2. Christmas Past

I walk down the stairs from the choir room and, as I'm leaving the school I notice him, Ralph. He's just sitting there looking down in fetal position. Is he… crying? He glares up at me, letting me know that it's all my fault. I glare back, letting him know that I really couldn't care less.

The air is cold, it's December, near Christmas. I come home and dodge my mother's embrace, and ignore the unfinished Christmas tree with it's untopped topper. I'm supposed to put it on the tree, I'm the tallest. I've always done it, but anymore I wonder: _"who needs Christmas?"_ I'm angry and so I storm upstairs, leaving a sad and confused mother downstairs.

It's late, since I stayed for choir practice until seven. I don't have anything better to do, so I get my nightly haunting out of the way. I sleep, dreamlessly for a change. When I wake up, I begin to think that my ghosts have left me, but I soon realize: I'm wrong.

He's sitting in the corner, like he always did, humming Amazing Grace and playing with his hands. He's small for his age and I haven't seen him since the Island.

"Jack," his small, melodious voice sends shivers up my spine. "I guess you could call me the Ghost of your Past."

"Sorry, Simon, you got the book wrong, it's 'Christmas Past."" I smirk.

"Yeah but Christmas didn't make you a jerk." He retaliates. Death gave him an attitude.

"You know, Simon," I start, "I did not ask you to come point out all of my flaws."

"So, you admit that you have them, then?" he asks.

"No." I answer, realizing I'm wrong, and that he _knows_ it.

"Then I guess I'll be showing them to you."

We go back to kindergarten, when we were just in kid's choir together. I played like a _normal_ kid. Back before "Head of the Choir" meant anything to me. We all made mistakes and it was always okay, due to some innocence, now dead as Simon.

"No one's perfect, Jack."

Then we're back on that… that… God forsaken Island! The Island where I get to watch myself fall and fall and… fall. Fall deeper into the pit of sin and death and corruption and just… I've made mistakes too, haven't I?

Jack, can you really bear this weight in your heart?" Simon asks, intent.

"No, Simon, I cannot. But I can realize that I've made mistakes and nothing can be done to change that."

"But Jack, you can be saved from those mistakes, sins, transgressions, _failures_. You can change."

"God," I say, "simply must hate me, Simon, for this. I am damned to Hell."

"Who _isn't_ Jack? Be saved and it isn't so!"

Then I'm back in my room, shivering. But I'm not so sure that Simon's right. I mean, I'm not as horrible as he says, am I? And what can salvation do to a heart as dark as my own?"


	3. Christmas Present

Then my second ghost enters. He's strong and so sure of himself it makes me sick. He's your typical leader, always thinking.

"So Jack," he starts, "I'll heal one day. I'll go back to that broken, lacerated mess that I am. Because of you."

"Because of me? Really, Ralph? Maybe if you would have just stayed out of my way--"

"Would you even be here if I did? You'd have nothing! Not even that fire, that fire you stole, that we would have shared--" Ralph yelled.

"Would you get over that fire already, Ralph, can't you just live and let die?"

"Let DIE? Let DIE? Jack, I'll show you death! Before this is over—you'll see it!" He yelled, exclaiming, allowing a view into his… soul? Do ghosts have souls? "Regardless, that… fire… got you rescued. Let's see what you've made a muck of since then, shall we?"

We arrived down stairs to see my mother and father prepare for church. It's a Wednesday night.

"Should we wake Jack?" my mother asks my father.

"No, let the boy sleep, Mary. He can go Sunday."

The tree is without a topper.

Then I'm transported to the Church.

"What is it," I ask, "that makes you hosts so intent upon the ownership of my soul?"

"Just listen, if you can manage that much, without, you know, jumping up and screaming something resentful towards the 'rules'."

"In John 3:16 one may read:" the minister preaches "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

"So you see, Jack," Ralph says, "your mistakes don't keep you further from Him. But they do hurt people."

Many scenes flash before us: Bill icing his bruise, Ralph weeping somewhere, but one, one stops me cold, like ice permeating my senses and stopping me, freezing me.

"Maybe—maybe I should." Roger says, "I mean… who would care if I died? Jack wouldn't. My best friend and all he can do is lead me to _this_."

He holds a handful of pills, he puts them in his mouth.

"NO!" I scream, hoping to stop him before he swallows.

"He can't hear you—these are illusions." Ralph says.

"Then—did it happen?" I ask, stunned and burning with shame, guilt, and pain in my bosom.

"Did it?" Ralph smirks.

Roger is nothing close to stupid. He spits the pills out. I thank God that he didn't take them. But he—he crumbles, sobbing.

"Jack, don't you see?" Ralph asks, "You must change this. Salvation—it's so easy, you can't change on your own, but God can change you. Jack, become who you need to be."

"Ralph, leave me to see my own soul's worth. It's ownership… it's mine."

"Yes Jack, it is. A fine job you've done with it." Ralph says, and disappears. Don't you just _hate_ it when people (ghosts?) leave you and make an impact?


	4. Christmas Future

My third ghost comes in. I can't see his face, but blood flows from his large blazer. He hand is bone.

"And who might you be?" I ask, knowing full well that it's none other than Piggy, coming to irk into my future grave, juuuust like he did in life (just kidding, disrespect the dead? Not when they're haunting me.) I've read the book, the Christmas Carol or whatever, you see.

No response. Oh, so he's the ghost of my emo, lonely future.

Future. It's dark. But you can't expect emo ghosts to enjoy the light. Dark and a church.

"Again? Really? Another one?" I ask.

He points his bond hand at the door. I guess I'm supposed to go in, but Piggy knows I don't listen to him. So somehow he controls my movements, gracefully moving my body through the door and into the church.

When he's finished his… demonic possession, I rush at him.

"Don't _ever _control me!" I scream, bloodlust in my eyes, in my veins. But he's of some gaseous form and I move through him. He points his ghostly hand at a casket. I advance towards it, expecting to see myself. What I see sends me stumbling back. His eyes are closed. His face is flushed. But it's still Roger.

"But he didn't do it! I watched him spit the—the pills out!" I yelled, realizing what indignance feels like.

Piggy's ghost lifts Roger's limp arm and exposes deep gashes in his wrist. Then we're gone from the scene and at the graveyard. A long child sits atop a tree, overlooking everything, haunted by… his former self.

"So, you all wonder around haunting everyone?" I ask, irritated. That's my ghost.

No response. What a surprise. I look at the two blonds in the three: Ralph and whoever Ralph was.

"I- I don't want to be strong." Ralph whines.

"Dad has been dead ever since you got back! Mum needs us!"

"Mummy will be fine!"

"She's have a BABY! She can't even work and it's such a hard pregnancy!! She could d--"

"Don't say it!" Now Ralph (?) screams. "Don't ever use that word! Leave me!"

Old-Ralph disappears.

"Wait, that's all it takes to get you guys to leave?" I ask. "LEAVE ME!" I yell to Piggy. I does not work, and we're back at home. FUTURE home.

"Mary," my dad holds my mom, "He needs help. We can take him to a nice institution a--"

"No! My Jackie isn't crazy!"

We arrive back at my present room, and I'm actually quite surprised that I wasn't thrown into hell via Roger's casket.


	5. Resolution

Oh wait, Roger's casket. Oh my gosh—that was my fault. Thing's I've said. And Ralph's mother, he needs to be strong, but he's timid. Things I've done! And my parent, their agony! Thing's I've become!

Can I really be forgiven? Could they be right? Burning conviction overtakes me. I fall to the floor.

"Dear Jesus, PLEASE! I've always believed in you, you're God's son! You died for me! You rose again! I've always been horrible too. Erase from me the guild of what I've done, forgive me! Take hold of my life! Be my savior! Amen!"

I feel anew with a sense of home. I have to fix everything! I grab my phone, shaking. "Please let him answer," I pray.

I dial. Almost immediately he answers.

"Hello?" he's surprised by my call.

"Roger? Look just, can I PLEASE come by? PLEASE?"

"I-I guess? Why?" he asks.

"Can't I just tell you when I get there? Please?" I beg.

"Sure." He says, apathetic.

I hang and run to his house. Run down streets with agility I never had, like water down a river, all the way until I get to his room. And I can barely breathe.

"Jack…." He asks. "What are you doing?"

"Roger, look," I say, "I know I told you that you should just kill yourself and stop complaining but, I didn't mean it."

He just looks at me and starts crying. I notice he has his hand in his pocket. He pulls out pills. So. Many. Pills. He starts sobbing now.

I put my arm around his shoulder (man-hug) and tell him that everything is going to be okay.

"Jack, how did you know what I was going to do?" he asks me.

"Uh… tell you later, I kinda need to take care of something." I remember that Ralph is still sulking somewhere. I get up to leave, careful to take the pills from Roger.

I have no idea where to find Ralph, so I wanted the dark streets alone. It dawns on me that the Ghost said his dad had died, so I head to the graveyard, hoping to find him.

Sure enough, I find him sitting on a grave, leaning on a tombstone.

"No one ever apologizes," he says, "it's not fair." He says it all to himself.

"Who said life was ever fair?" I speak. There's a jump and a glare.

"Regardless of any of that, people should still apologize. And you should still leave." Ralph spits out the words, anger and hate mixed in with his sadness.

"Sometimes people don't realize they're doing anything wrong." I say, "And you have to just keep on going."

"Why are you here?" he asks, "why are you, of all people, here?"

"I'm here because I'm sorry from what I did, for making you this way."

"Sorry doesn't change what happened." He says, his voice cracking.

"Then why do you want everyone to say it? If it can't bring people back? If it can't change the past? Why can't you move on?"

He doesn't say anything. He just gets up and walks away. So I go home. I walk in and my mother is holding the tree topper. She's not tall enough to put it on. She looks at me and I walk over and gently take it from her, placing it on the tree. Then I hug her.

"I love you, Mom."


End file.
